OK, good for you. You’ve had a busy day, an active day, a productive day. And on top of that, you got up early to get it all going.
Now, it’s nearing 10 pm and you think to yourself, “Time to slow down, get relaxed, head for the bedroom, read a little, and get a good night’s sleep.”What a good and wise thought.
You begin to work your way in that direction, but cat litter needs emptying and the water bowl needs refreshing and, yes, the dishwasher finished a couple hours ago. It would be better to empty it now, wouldn’t it?
So you do.
And then there’s that email you forgot about until this very second — you promised to send information today to a new client. Back to the computer for just a few minutes, right? No big deal. I’ll only take a moment. But while you’re there, you take care of a couple other emails. One takes longer than you thought.
Oops. Back to the kitchen to get the sliced peaches and big fat blueberries out of the freezer for tomorrow. You congratulate yourself for remembering.
Are we done yet?
Not quite. Brush teeth, wash face, jammies on.
Into blessed bed.
The clock says 11:15 pm. My how time flies.
So as your weary head falls to your heavenly pillow you think, “Ahhhh. Sleep. This is gonna be a piece of cake. This is gonna be so easy. I’m so tired.”And then the unthinkable begins….
Nodding off effortlessly into dreamland — is not happening!
Where did it go? The Big Sleepy Head was here just a minute ago. Alas. Sleepy Head traded places with Busy Mind. What an unwelcome exchange….
But you’re smart. You can handle this. You’ve heard from every guru out there since the 70’s that what you resist only gets worse, what you think about manifests, and where your attention flows your energy goes.
(Yeah, yeah. Just get me to sleep, please…)
So, being the good and brilliant human that you are, you resolve to welcome the unwelcome visitor, and be easy about it. You tell yourself to let go of it all and chill out. You do your best to tune out the party in your head.
You breathe deeply. They say that works.
The dance of words slows a bit.
“This is going well,” you think optimistically. “I must be doing something right.”
But inside your head, the talking party doesn’t actually stop. There are a couple of noisy and determined characters who keep bringing up new topics for discussion. (At least it’s not a choir now!) These frisky ones are bringing up random, free range comment threads that don’t matter at all at this hour, or probably ever.
But there they are, these word children, yacking away. The conversation is growing again.
(Sigh…)
One is planning an upcoming family reunion and making lists. Another is thinking about spring gardening and what to plant. Another is combing through a recent conversation, word for word, wondering what could have been said to make it turn out differently.
Goodness. What can you do with them?
“Hush,” you say to the noisiest ones. You imagine them as restless children who played outside all day and just can’t settle down. You’re a good mom. You understand. And then with a deep sigh, you give them a pillow and blanket and gently but firmly tell them to lay their sweet heads down, down, down.
And patiently, you pat them gently on their little heads and say, “It’s late, my darlings. Morning comes soon. Go to sleep.”
You even read them a story. “Once upon a time…”
And the restless word children settle down for a minute. The bedtime story is good, but of course one of them asks for a drink of water.
You get the drink and sink back into the land of hopeful sleep.
Drat.
The last child, the noisiest one is still awake.
So now what?
“Well, what if I sing a lullaby?”
You hum silently.
You notice you’re breathing more deeply.
Z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z………
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About Terri Crosby — I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains with Eric, my partner of 15 years, two cats and a dog, and as many flowers and vegetables as I can plant. I love really good food, good friends, good relationships!
Christie Lenee can play a guitar. She’s the 2017 International Finger Style Guitar Champion of the Year. In September of last year in London, she also won Acoustic Guitarist of the Year.
But lucky for us, she’s not just a champion guitar player. Christie Lenee is also quite the composer.
A friend of hers, Michael Pukac, requested that she write a song, one he described as “the story of love.” She scribbled notes and went to work.
Through Christie’s ability to imagine, his desire became music. Now she plays this song for the world with her love fingers. Lucky you, lucky me, lucky us.
Take very good care of yourself this week. Why not sing a little…
You’re broken down and tired Of living life on a merry go round And you can’t find the fighter But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out And move mountains We gonna walk it out And move mountains
And I’ll rise up I’ll rise like the day I’ll rise up I’ll rise unafraid I’ll rise up And I’ll do it a thousand times again And I’ll rise up High like the waves I’ll rise up In spite of the ache I’ll rise up And I’ll do it a thousand times again
For you For you For you For you
When the silence isn’t quiet And it feels like it’s getting hard to breathe And I know you feel like dying But I promise we’ll take the world to its feet And move mountains Bring it to its feet And move mountains
And I’ll rise up I’ll rise like the day I’ll rise up I’ll rise unafraid I’ll rise up And I’ll do it a thousand times again
For you For you For you For you
All we need, all we need is hope And for that we have each other And for that we have each other And we will rise We will rise We’ll rise, oh, oh We’ll rise
I’ll rise up Rise like the day I’ll rise up In spite of the ache I will rise a thousand times again And we’ll rise up High like the waves We’ll rise up In spite of the ache We’ll rise up And we’ll do it a thousand times again
During this strange time in history, I noticed y’all were tackling all sorts of interesting projects. I decided I needed one, too—something positive to remember the pandemic of 2020 by.
I decided to pay attention to something I had abandoned…
Nope, I’m not cleaning my garage. I am not organizing one single thing. I’m not planting a garden or cleaning up my yard.
Instead, I decided to take care of myself better. This, folks, has made all the difference for me.
With relatively little time and effort on my part, I feel so much better than I did a month ago.
On March 30, I got on the exercise bike and the yoga mat for the first time in a long time, and did 30 minutes each. I liked it so much that I decided to do it every day. But I fell short of that, and changed my commitment to every other day, which felt more manageable, reasonable, and doable.
I also get off the bike after every song, take a couple of sips of water, shake out my legs and arms for a few seconds, and get back on. This makes the bike project a reasonable proposition, too.
Daily walks of any length—by myself, or with my little guy, Jackson—are a fresh air bonus.
My recumbent exercise bike has pulleys to work my upper body while I pedal, which gets my heart rate up fast, and also helps my whole-body strength. It feels good to get up from writing, or doing a consulting session with a client, to do something physically challenging while listening to good music.
After only a month, I feel a sheet of muscles on the front of me I haven’t felt for a very, very long time. Goodness gracious. Who knew they were there. I’ll be posting rippling ab photos soon, I’m sure.
I have no idea what the scales have to say about my bike/yoga project—I don’t care. Paying attention to scales tends to send me sideways, and therefore, I’m ignoring them completely.
But—I LOVE the way I feel! Hang in there, everyone.
shiner
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Great analogies as always!
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Terri Crosby
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Thank you, Shiner!
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